Labor and Reform, vol 3, part 5

Project Gutenberg EBook, Songs of Labor and Reform, by Whittier Volume III., The Works of Whittier: Anti-Slavery, Labor and Reform #24 in our series by John Greenleaf Whittier
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Title: Songs of Labor and Reform
From Volume III., The Works of Whittier: Anti-Slavery Poems and Songs of Labor and Reform
Author: John Greenleaf Whittier
Release Date: December 2005 [EBook #9579]?[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]?[This file was first posted on October 15, 2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
? START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, SONGS OF LABOR AND REFORM ***
This eBook was produced by David Widger [[email protected] ]
ANTI-SLAVERY POEMS
SONGS OF LABOR AND REFORM
BY
JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER
SONGS OF LABOR AND REFORM
CONTENTS:
THE QUAKER OF THE OLDEN TIME?DEMOCRACY?THE GALLOWS?SEED-TIME AND HARVEST?TO THE REFORMERS OF ENGLAND?THE HUMAN SACRIFICE?SONGS OF LABOR
DEDICATION?THE SHOEMAKERS?THE FISHERMEN?THE LUMBERMEN?THE SHIP-BUILDERS?THE DROVERS?THE HUSKERS?THE REFORMER?THE PEACE CONVENTION AT BRUSSELS?THE PRISONER FOR DEBT?THE CHRISTIAN TOURISTS?THE MEN OF OLD?TO PIUS IX.?CALEF IN BOSTON?OUR STATE?THE PRISONERS OF NAPLES?THE PEACE OF EUROPE?ASTRAEA?THE DISENTHRALLED?THE POOR VOTER ON ELECTION DAY?THE DREAM OF PIO NONO?THE VOICES?THE NEW EXODUS?THE CONQUEST OF FINLAND?THE EVE OF ELECTION?FROM PERUGIA?ITALY?FREEDOM IN BRAZIL?AFTER ELECTION?DISARMAMENT?THE PROBLEM?OUR COUNTRY?ON THE BIG HORN
NOTES
THE QUAKER OF THE OLDEN TIME.
THE Quaker of the olden time!?How calm and firm and true,?Unspotted by its wrong and crime,?He walked the dark earth through.?The lust of power, the love of gain,?The thousand lures of sin?Around him, had no power to stain?The purity within.
With that deep insight which detects?All great things in the small,?And knows how each man's life affects?The spiritual life of all,?He walked by faith and not by sight,?By love and not by law;?The presence of the wrong or right?He rather felt than saw.
He felt that wrong with wrong partakes,?That nothing stands alone,?That whoso gives the motive, makes?His brother's sin his own.?And, pausing not for doubtful choice?Of evils great or small,?He listened to that inward voice?Which called away from all.
O Spirit of that early day,?So pure and strong and true,?Be with us in the narrow way?Our faithful fathers knew.?Give strength the evil to forsake,?The cross of Truth to bear,?And love and reverent fear to make?Our daily lives a prayer!?1838.
DEMOCRACY.
All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.--MATTHEW vii. 12.
BEARER of Freedom's holy light,?Breaker of Slavery's chain and rod,?The foe of all which pains the sight,?Or wounds the generous ear of God!
Beautiful yet thy temples rise,?Though there profaning gifts are thrown;?And fires unkindled of the skies?Are glaring round thy altar-stone.
Still sacred, though thy name be breathed?By those whose hearts thy truth deride;?And garlands, plucked from thee, are wreathed?Around the haughty brows of Pride.
Oh, ideal of my boyhood's time!?The faith in which my father stood,?Even when the sons of Lust and Crime?Had stained thy peaceful courts with blood!
Still to those courts my footsteps turn,?For through the mists which darken there,?I see the flame of Freedom burn,--?The Kebla of the patriot's prayer!
The generous feeling, pure and warm,?Which owns the right of all divine;?The pitying heart, the helping arm,?The prompt self-sacrifice, are thine.
Beneath thy broad, impartial eye,?How fade the lines of caste and birth!?How equal in their suffering lie?The groaning multitudes of earth!
Still to a stricken brother true,?Whatever clime hath nurtured him;?As stooped to heal the wounded Jew?The worshipper of Gerizim.
By misery unrepelled, unawed?By pomp or power, thou seest a Man?In prince or peasant, slave or lord,?Pale priest, or swarthy artisan.
Through all disguise, form, place, or name,?Beneath the flaunting robes of sin,?Through poverty and squalid shame,?Thou lookest on the man within.
On man, as man, retaining yet,?Howe'er debased, and soiled, and dim,?The crown upon his forehead set,?The immortal gift of God to him.
And there is reverence in thy look;?For that frail form which mortals wear?The Spirit of the Holiest took,?And veiled His perfect brightness there.
Not from the shallow babbling fount?Of vain philosophy thou art;?He who of old on Syria's Mount?Thrilled, warmed, by turns, the listener's heart,
In holy words which cannot die,?In thoughts which angels leaned to know,?Proclaimed thy message from on high,?Thy mission to a world of woe.
That voice's echo hath not died!?From the blue lake of